How inefficient is this programming idea?

[AlTech]

So this idea started out of a dislike for using Java and Window Builder.

 

 

This is my idea for packaging a program:

1. Have a java launcher.jar program which gets information needed for the program
2. Get the launcher.jar to save the information to a file
3. Get the launcher.jar to launch another executable
4. Have the new executable open the program.

 

Is this a really bad idea?

 

I thought of this since the executable I'm using can't get the information needed. The launcher.jar program could get the information required.

 

Would this have a big impact on startup time or not?

 

Thanks.

[SCHISCHKA]

The only overhead is in starting a thread which will be stuff all. Also this is stupidly easy to do in Unix, maybe the new powershell might be useful to you.

[Pinguinsan]

This is essentially a process of bootstrapping. It is very common in software (one example off the top of my head is Steam). If you want to try to see it done, go to your Steam installation folder, and delete all the files and folders except for "steam.exe", "steamapps", and "userdata", then run steam.exe as admin. You can watch as the program downloads and extracts packages needed for steam. If you have Linux, check out the "steam.sh" shell script which handles this. 

So to answer you question more directly, it is very common and not inefficient.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Pinguinsan said:

This is essentially a process of bootstrapping. It is very common in software (one example off the top of my head is Steam). If you want to try to see it done, go to your Steam installation folder, and delete all the files and folders except for "steam.exe", "steamapps", and "userdata", then run steam.exe as admin. You can watch as the program downloads and extracts packages needed for steam. If you have Linux, check out the "steam.sh" shell script which handles this. 

So to answer you question more directly, it is very common and not inefficient.

Oh. Thank you . Now I feel like a noob for asking this question .

[AlTech]

10 minutes ago, Pinguinsan said:

This is essentially a process of bootstrapping. It is very common in software (one example off the top of my head is Steam). If you want to try to see it done, go to your Steam installation folder, and delete all the files and folders except for "steam.exe", "steamapps", and "userdata", then run steam.exe as admin. You can watch as the program downloads and extracts packages needed for steam. If you have Linux, check out the "steam.sh" shell script which handles this. 

So to answer you question more directly, it is very common and not inefficient.

Even with Java opening the JVM, it wouldn't be inefficient?

[patrickjp93]

It's only inefficient in that it'll be slower than a direct-hardware language, but no, structurally it's a very common and good practice. Separation of concerns is a good thing

 

On 12/1/2016 at 11:16 PM, AluminiumTech said:

Even with Java opening the JVM, it wouldn't be inefficient?

The second jar will just open up in the same JVM, so there should be no palpable overhead there.